Renato Moicano suffered serious shoulder injury just weeks before win over Benoit Saint Denis at UFC Paris

Renato Moicano and Benoit Saint Denis | Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC

Renato Moicano battered Benoit Saint Denis to earn a stoppage win on Saturday at UFC Paris, but by all accounts he shouldn’t have even been there.

Approximately three to four weeks before Saturday’s event, Moicano suffered a serious shoulder injury that could have easily knocked him out of the fight. Instead, Moicano fought through the pain and scored an impressive win to continue his ascension up the lightweight ranks.

“Honestly, I was surprised when he told me the initial decision was to stay in the fight,” Moicano’s manager Oren Hodak from KO Reps told MMA Fighting on Sunday. “Luckily his team trained smart and they made it to the fight.”

X-ray photos provided to Kevin Iole show the extent of the separated shoulder that Moicano suffered prior to his fight. Moicano fought through the injury even with the shoulder still showing damage during moments in the fight.

Remarkably, Moicano withstood the injury and went on to deliver a performance where he scored with vicious shots throughout the opening round that caused significant cuts and swelling on Saint Denis’ face. While the highly touted prospect from France survived the barrage in the opening round, he still showed the aftereffects from the damage done when the fight restarted in the second.

The five-minute session ended with doctors determining that Saint Denis couldn’t see properly out of his right eye due to the tremendous swelling and the fight was stopped.

The victory moved Moicano to 4-0 in his past four outings, including stoppage wins over Saint Denis, Jalin Turner and Brad Riddell.

Following the fight, Moicano called for “easy money” matchups like Paddy Pimblett or Dan Hooker when he returns to action, most likely sometime in 2025.